This Again
by aemelia113
Summary: Henry is doing a routine late night in the morgue when the corpse of the girl he is examining sits up. Claire Bennett could use a little help from her fellow immortal in procuring some clothing.


This Again

Henry was the last one left in the morgue, as per usual. He had insisted that Lucas go home while he handled the autopsy on a last-minute victim that had arrived as he was putting on his coat. Lab coat on and sterile gloves in place, he began the careful work of examining the young woman on his lab table. She was young and pretty, with long blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail. Her arms were a mess of bruises and her knees were bloody with scrapes and chock full of debris. Her feet had been bare even before Henry carefully cut off her clothing and removed all personal items. They were also bloody and had a layer of dirt. There were particulates under her fingernails and several were broken off. Henry took stock of all this, as well as photographs and samples, before slicing her chest open in the traditional Y shape. Nothing among her organs seemed out of the ordinary, but he'd have to get the toxicology report back on her blood sample he'd taken before he knew if substances had anything to do with her death. Judging by the defensive wounds and injuries likely sustained in a fall, foul play was involved somehow. Without a doubt, she had been running from something. Or someone.

When he lifted her neck to examine it after closing his incision and covering her with a sheet again, he found a slim piece of metal. Rebar, judging by the looks of what little protruded from the base of her skull. Carefully, he pulled out the piece of metal to get a better look. It was an ordinary shaft of metal, other than the fact it had come from a girl's head. It was covered in the typical ridges and also in blood. Poor woman. Henry looked at her as he felt a pang of empathy. Brain injuries could be terribly painful.

He was shocked when he saw the damage on her arms and legs, feet and knees, hands and face, begin to heal. He checked the wound at the back of her head and saw that it was nearly closed. He leaned over her face and saw her milky white eyes warm to brown, blink, and fly open again. The young lady who had previously been a corpse suddenly sat up and gasped violently.

Henry was startled, but he felt as though he ought to be more shocked than this. Other than him and Adam, dead bodies didn't usually come back to life. There was Emily, of course. She had been presumed dead due to serious injury and had recovered, given time. But how had this girl obtained the ability? As far as he knew, Ms. Adler hadn't done any human testing with the serum aside from herself, but he honestly wouldn't put it past the person she had been following her presumed death.

The lady in question clutched the sheet to her chest and looked around frantically. She seemed relaxed until she noticed him standing behind her, then she panicked.

"Um, don't freak out. I can explain," she said quickly with a nervous flutter in her voice.

"I am perfectly calm. In fact, you, or rather your body, picked the best possible morgue and time to inexplicably revive," Henry explained. "Of every medical examiner you could have come back to life in front of, you did so in the presence of perhaps the only one who can empathize with your current situation."

" _You_ have woken up naked on an autopsy table after being dead? Because this is the second time it's happened to me," she complained.

"Not exactly. I have come back to life naked in the East River on a number of occasions. It lends itself to some awkward situations. I've been arrested for public indecency a time or two. Clearly, our methods of resurrection differ because you retained your clothing, whereas I don't have that option," Henry continued.

Normally, he wasn't one to share his secret upon first meeting a person, but clearly this girl had secrets of her own of a similar nature. She had a look about her face that said she could be trusted. Besides, his voice and his explanation seemed to be calming her down. She cracked a smile at his anecdote of being naked in public.

"Speaking of clothes, could I get mine back, please? Not that you haven't seen it all already because of the autopsy, but I'd feel more comfortable wearing more than a sheet," the girl said, not unkindly.

Henry blushed furiously. Usually the female corpses that he had to undress to examine didn't come back to life to mind having their modesty compromised. It would have been easier if she wasn't so young... or at least young-looking. He of all people knew what it was like to be far older than appearances would indicate.

"Unfortunately I had to cut your clothing away due to rigor mortis, but I should have a spare set of police department sweats around here somewhere, albeit a bit large for you," Henry offered.

"Thanks," the girl said. "I'm Claire, by the way."

"Doctor Henry Morgan at your service, Claire," he replied gallantly, hamming it up a bit to make her smile again.

Henry pulled out the sweats from his bottom desk drawer and presented them to Claire, who was still holding the sheet up to her chest. He set them next to her and walked off a few steps and turned his back to her to be polite. She cleared her throat and told him he could turn around. He did so and took in the way the oversized clothing hung off her small frame. She was absolutely swimming in fabric. Her hand was at her waist to hold the pants, which were about to fall off despite the drawstring being pulled as tight as it could go, up. The sweatshirt left her shoulders bare and hung several inches past her hands.

"I'm not sure this is going to work. I don't think I'll get very far wearing these," Claire commented.

"Where are you trying to get to?" Henry asked her.

"I'm trying to find a person more than a place. My uncle Peter is missing and I think that he'd come back here eventually since he grew up in New York. I was just trying to track down a lead to the last place anybody saw him, at some docks nearby," she explained.

"Well, you are correct that these garments won't serve you very efficiently. I doubt you could make it out of the building with your modesty intact," Henry agreed. He eyed the sheet on the table and an idea came to him. "I think that with some pins, you and I could fashion the sheet into a reasonable dress. If you wrap it around your body like so," he said, demonstrating on himself, "I can attach the safety pins at key points and give you a temporary covering until some more suitable clothes can be found."

"Let's try it," she agreed.

About ten minutes later, Claire was wearing a one-shouldered toga-like dress that covered her to her shins. It was actually fairly pretty. If you didn't know it had been made from a sheet, you probably wouldn't have noticed that it was held together with safety pins. Henry handed her his coat to fight off the chill, as the "dress" wasn't terribly warm.

"Where on earth did you learn to do this?" Claire asked as she caught her reflection in the glass of the office.

"When you have been trying to preserve your modesty for two hundred years of inopportune deaths, you learn to get creative with covering the essentials," he replied while rummaging in the evidence drawer for her personal belongings.

Finding them, he handed over a purse and a necklace. The purse still had her wallet inside, but the cash had been emptied out. The police suspected a robbery gone wrong.

"Two hundred years!" Claire exclaimed. "You look like you're barely over thirty."

"Well, after coming back to life, a lack of aging seems a bit less impossible, wouldn't you say?" Henry asked her. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen," she answered.

"That's awfully young to have died and woken up naked in a morgue twice," Henry sighed. "I'm terribly sorry."

"Yeah, well, I've been through worse. Sorry, that probably didn't make you feel any better. We must all seem like fetuses compared to you. Thank you for the clothes, by the way," she said.

"You're very welcome. Not to pry, but how did you die? Is there someone after you?" he asked her.

"No, it was just a mugging. I really ought to learn some self-defense. I'm fine, really," she insisted.

"Alright, then. Would you like to come to my flat and get a hot shower, some food, and some more permanent clothing? I wouldn't mind a bit. It would be the least I can do after, ahem, performing an autopsy on you," he suggested.

"That would be perfect, thanks," she laughed. "Does this sort of thing happen to you every day?"

"No, but often enough. Come on, let's get you taken care of so you can resume your mission," he said, leading the way out of the morgue.

"I'd like to hear more about this whole 'being two centuries old' thing," Claire teased.

Henry cracked a smile and replied, "It's a long story."

-End-

A/N: Hello, lovelies! It has been an unforgivable amount of time since I have posted anything. Sorry! Most of my fics are chaptered, so I thought I'd try my hand at a one-shot. After seeing the scene in season one where Claire wakes up with her chest open, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if it had been Henry's morgue. I have only seen about half of season two of Heroes, so sorry if some stuff is wrong. This story is set up around the time after Peter went missing to Scotland, but AU-ish because Claire is looking for him (unless she actually is doing that. IDK because I'm not very far through the season yet.). For my Supernatural fans: Echo should be updating within the month. Thanks for the kind reviews and for sticking with me.


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